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Articles from Vol. 61, No. 2, February

A Sprouting of Faith

When my sister Eleanor was third grade, she memorized Matthew 17:20, about faith "the size of a mustard seed." Ellie liked the idea of relocating mountains. One night at dinner, she speared a lima bean with her fork, lifted it toward her mouth and stared...

Suffering, as we know, can be physical, psychic, mental, emotional. There are many forms of suffering and it is inescapable. Everyone suffers; it is part of the human condition. Even Jesus was "destined to suffer grievously" (Luke 9:22), and so are we....

BEFORE THEY PUT ME INTO THE GROUND, THE priest will sprinkle the gaping grave with holy water. My grieving relatives will be relieved. Their sturdy faith will have convinced them that holy water can cool the fires of hell in a race for my soul. (My Irish...

MAYBE WE SHOULD BE GRATEFUL TO DR. Kevorkian after all. But if gratitude is due him, it is owing to his having brought a terribly important and terribly difficult problem that we are often reluctant to discuss to the forefront. Not that such gratitude...

Last Christmas on my way to visit my parents in Indiana, driving through Gary past the steel mills and empty lands surrounding them, an image floated up from one of the first papers I ever read as teacher of English as a Second Language. The image came...

Calvin is a brat, Cathy is neurotic, and Charlie Brown is a loser, but these and other characters may be the primary dispensers of moral ethics and religious insights to millions of comicstrip readers every day. What can readers expect from this modern...

One in five homicides occurs in families. More than I million Americans are in jail or prison. There are more gun dealers in the United States than gas stations. America is the violence capital of the industrialized world it is our problem, but what...

WHEN JESUS, AFTER HIS resurrection, sat down with the two from Emmaus--Cleopas and probably his wife--"he took their bread, said a, blessing, broke it and gave each a piece" (Luke 24:30). Before I left for East Africa, I had been having in the Netherlands....

There were high expectations for healthcare reform in 1995. Sixty years after the 1935 Social Security Act and 30 years after Medicaid and Medicare legislation was passed in 1965, many thought 1995 was the year when Congress would guarantee adequate...